


Each Shape of Sin

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, F/M, Good Morgana (Merlin), Half-Sibling Incest, Magic Revealed, Merlin Gives Zero Fucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23166130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: Like the gods and goddesses of old, there is only one man who could ever be her equal.
Relationships: Morgana/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 119





	Each Shape of Sin

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the poem "Enthralled," by Alfred Bryan.

It is snowing when Arthur finds her.

She's put him up for a merry chase, all the way across Camelot and beyond her borders, east through Mercia and then north to Deira, all the way to this frozen little clearing in a desolate stretch of woodland. But now he has brought her to bay. Her horse, that poor, pitiful old nag, had fled her at the approach of the storm, and she cannot outrun Arthur on foot when he is mounted on one of Camelot's finest steeds.

Morgana clutches her blanket around herself, holding it even as the wind does its best to snatch it away from her, staring at him as he approaches. Her magic crawls with indecision, self-preservation warring with deep-rooted affection and fondness stretching back to childhood.

Arthur's cloak is a vivid banner of crimson against the swirling backdrop of white around them, Pendragon red bright as blood. He isn't in battle dress. Not his gambeson. Not his maille. None of it. One could argue the steel would sap him in the cold, but she knows how damnably stubborn he is. He's braved worse than this in his armour. The only steel he has on him now is his sword, the blade drawn and held down at his side.

Morgana's breath seizes to see it. She might jest with him and taunt him with her childhood victories, but that is years ago now. He is now taller and broader than her, his reach greater, the veteran of countless battles.

With one strong motion, he raises his sword and plunges it straight down blade-first, directly through the snow and into the hard ground below, driving it in hard enough to stick. And he leaves it there, the hilt pointed towards the sky.

"We've loved one another for so long," he says softly, taking another step towards her, gloved hands open and empty. "Does that truly break so easily?"

No. No, it doesn't. Even now, she aches to see him so vulnerable, knowing that he doesn't let anyone see him thusly if he can help it. Though he does not know it yet, he's the fault line between herself and Morgause, the one fissure that can and has split them apart, her so-called _sister_. Arthur isn't his father. She knows that if they just _show_ him, if they let him _see,_ then he can change. He will.

She shakes her head.

Another step. If she extended her arm, their hands would touch. "Come with me. You'll freeze to death out here like this," he points out, casting a glance at her inadequate attire, her lack of supplies.

"Nothing is warmer than a pyre," she whispers.

Despite the low moan of the ever-present wind, he hears, but he doesn't flinch. "I won't let that happen. Not now, not ever."

Goddess mercy, the _conviction_ in his voice. What did that Hellene scholar say? She had read his works as a girl, though she cannot remember his name now. _Give me a long enough lever and a firm place to stand, and I can move the world._ He could have stood on Arthur in that moment.

She steps towards him, her legs almost numb from standing in place so long. Once she's near enough to touch him, Arthur unclasps his cloak and slings it around her, folding the heavy, fur-lined fabric around her body, drawing up the hood around her face. It's warm from his body and smells of horse and Arthur. "There," he murmurs, tucking her hair in beneath the hood, pulling the fastenings tight. "Let's go home."

_Home._ The word hits her like a javelin, and the dam she'd built around her heart splits asunder. Morgana falls forward into him, buries her face in his chest, and finally lets herself cry.

* * *

She doesn't know what all has happened in Camelot since her fleeing, what has changed between Merlin and Arthur, but she knows the balance of power between them has shifted irrevocably. She understands it when, upon their return to the citadel, Arthur marches her promptly to his own chambers, not to Gaius's.

Merlin is there waiting for them. Laid out upon the table where Arthur has written speeches and answered petitions and planned strategies, he has laid out a spread of different herbs, a handful of small phials, a knife, a chalice, a mortar and pestle, and a grimoire.

Arthur gives her a cup of spiced wine and stands behind her chair with warm, reassuring hands on her blanket-covered shoulders, and she watches as Merlin brews a posset for her. The firelight makes the gold of his eyes stand out even more clearly, as gold as the dragon emblazoned on the wall hangings. When she drinks it, warmth suffuses every inch of her body, and she watches through grateful tears as sensation returns to her fingertips, which have turned blue and blistered with cold.

As she curls her tingling fingers into loose fists, relishing the sensation, it finally occurs to her to ask why Uther has not broken down the chamber doors and demanded an audience. Or issued an order of execution.

Arthur's fingers twitch slightly on her shoulders. "The King has taken ill."

She's never heard that tone from him before, but something in his voice keeps her quiet, sipping at her wine slowly.

They don't speak of it any further, at least not in words, only in quiet moments and steady gazes and silent understanding, but Morgana has long since learned that in order to see what is not there, one must gaze upon what is. And she had read some of Morgause's grimoire before their last parting. Nature seeks balance in all things.

Merlin knows how to cure many forms of sickness. In order to learn the charm to cure, one must first learn the charm to cause.

The King is dead.

Long live the King.

* * *

In the end, they do not announce their relation to the court. Beyond Arthur and herself, the only ones who know of it are those who can be trusted it. Merlin. Guinevere. Gaius. Everyone else who knows that the young king and the old king's ward are half-siblings are all dead. Morgana and Arthur agree on it together, that it is for the best, though neither of them can say why. Or, at least, they refuse to say why.

Merlin brings her books to read. Not only the book of magic Gaius had given him, but his own grimoire, one he had begun writing himself as his powers grew. Magic is a force of nature, and as such, it bears no true alignment towards good or evil. Those are human creations. _She_ is not evil. Not unless she chooses to be.

It is _intent_ that shifts that power from dark to light to muddled grey. Every stem, leaf, and root in the physician's chamber can be used to harm as well as heal, the only difference being the manner in which it is used. Not only the plants, but the other devices of spellcraft as well. A red candle might represent blood if used in the rituals of necromancy, but it might represent passion if used in a charm to bring a fertile marriage.

It is in one of those books that Merlin brings her does she find it.

An ancient book, the pages so old they are near translucent in places, and she has to be mindful when turning them lest they crumble. On one such page she finds an illustration, done in lines gone so faint they're more grey than black, of the earth and sky, the shapes of a man and woman suggested in the swirls of the clouds and breezes, the sloping curves of the hills and valleys. Morgana tilts her head slowly, rotating the book with utmost care to read the words that are inscribed all around the illustration, her heart beating so hard in her breast it near hurts.

The Old Tongue does not always translate so neatly into Alban, but that does not stop her from understanding the ancient myth contained in those few lines, so ancient the names of these deities have been lost, the nameless goddess of the earth who had taken the sky above, her brother, as her consort, the only one who could be her equal, and formed the stars themselves from their love.

No man could be brother and lover to the same woman. Such a thing has always been so, condemned as a sin of the darkest sort, punishable by death and an afterlife of eternal torment. Still. They are only half-siblings. Perhaps that makes it only half a sin. She doesn't think the new religion makes such distinctions either way. But she follows something older.

When she tries to pose the question to Merlin, she finds she cannot, guilt and shame closing up her throat. Merlin has always had a talent for understanding that which others cannot say, and he gives her that deep, fathomless gaze like the bottom of the sea, and in that moment, she understands why the name _Emrys_ is whispered with such reverence.

He reaches out and places one hand flat on the cover of a book on his desk. His desk, in his study, in the long-abandoned north tower that Arthur had given over to him and his magic. He had left Camelot for a month and returned with it. She's not read it yet. And she cannot tell what kind of hide it has been bound in, only that it makes the nape of her neck prickle. "I've met men who eat other men," is all he says.

After that, there is nothing else for it but to tell Arthur.

She invites him to her chambers for a private dinner together, dismissing both Merlin and Guinevere once the plates are cleared away and their conversation lulls into gentle quiet. May the Goddess have mercy on her, but he is so handsome like this, relaxed and happy as he slouches in his chair, the firelight gilding his hair like hammered gold even as he gives her that lopsided little half-smile of his that flashes his crooked tooth, almost unbearably endearing.

Morgana stares and stares at him, not knowing what to say, what she even _can_ say to him, her friend, her confidant, her king, her brother. Arthur keeps her gaze, smile gradually fading the longer she's silent, sensing that there's something he's not being told. Finally, she goes to retrieve the book from the drawer of her desk, opens it to the illustrated pages, and lays it open before him, nothing more.

His brow knits in puzzlement as he takes it from her, and she watches his face as he traces his fingertips over the same faded illustration, tilts his head to read the words curling around the drawing. She can't keep looking at him, sliding away to fix her gaze on some unseen point off his left shoulder. She cannot bear to see what might be on his face.

In the peripheral of her vision, she sees his shoulder tighten, hears the creak of ancient binding as he closes the book. Her heart rabbits painfully.

Arthur leans forward and kisses her.

* * *

The sky lays above the earth, but Arthur is best beneath her.

Morgana clasps both her hands with his own to keep her balance as she rocks atop him, watching his face. His hair is dampened with sweat and darker for it, pupils blown so wide his eyes are more black than blue, both present and distant. The flickering, dancing light of the candles, lit by instinctive magic, casts strange shadows across their bodies as the bedframe creaks and groans faintly with the steady motions of its occupants.

He releases her hands in favour of holding her hips, urging her on as they chase after something that lies just beyond their grasp but draws closer and closer with each push of his body into hers. Her dark hair falls forward to curtain around both their faces as she leans forward to brace her hands on his shoulders, digging her nails into firm muscle built over years of training. Slow-steady, the waves roll higher and higher, a spring being coiled tighter and tighter…. Until it finally breaks in her, that wave cresting and crashing.

Arthur gasps her name and digs his fingertips into her thighs hard enough to bruise.

And she can hear the stars sing.


End file.
